600 FOR BUSQUETS AND MESSI
Busquets and Messi: 600 games together!
Sergio Busquets and Lionel Messi have played 600 career matches together. They reached this milestone in the MLS match for Inter Miami vs Charlotte (1:1) on 29 September.
Now they are already at 602. This amount consists of their common performances for Barcelona (569) and Inter Miami (33).
This pair is only third in the history of football to reach this mark. The first to do it were Gerd Müller and Sepp Maier, who played 611 top level matches together for Germany and Bayern.
Then their achievement was surpassed by Busquets and Gerard Pique: 620 games together for Spain and Barcelona.
Now Busquets has reached the milestone with another partner, with whom he is now close to updating his own record. 19 games separate Busquets and Messi from this aim: a goal that can be achieved probably next year.
Here, for the first time, we publish historical ranking for the partnerships with the most games played together.
Notably, Thomas Müller and Manuel Neuer also have a good chance of reaching the 600-game mark quite soon.
As usual, only top-level matches are taken into account.
The match is counted for a pair if both players were on the pitch (not necessarily at the same time).
| TEAM-MATES | WITH MOST | GAMES PLAYED | TOGETHER | ||||||
| Partner 1 | Partner 2 | Games | National Team | Club 1 | Club 2 | ||||
| 1 | Sergio Busquets | Gerard Piqué | 620 | Spain 2009-18 | 87 | Barcelona 2008-22 | 533 | ||
| 2 | Gerd Müller | Sepp Maier | 611 | Germany 1966-74 | 47 | Bayern 1965-79 | 564 | ||
| 3 | Sergio Busquets | Lionel Messi | 602 | Barcelona 2008-21 | 569 | Inter Miami 2023- | 33 | ||
| 4 | Franz Beckenbauer | Sepp Maier | 599 | Germany 1966-77 | 68 | Bayern 1965-77 | 531 | ||
| 5 | Thomas Müller | Manuel Neuer | 584 | Germany 2010-24 | 96 | Bayern 2011- | 488 | ||
| 6 | Sepp Maier | Georg Schwarzenbeck | 583 | Germany 1971-78 | 38 | Bayern 1966-79 | 545 | ||
| 7 | Steven Gerrard | Jamie Carragher | 582 | England 2001-10 | 30 | Liverpool 1998-13 | 552 | ||
| 8 | Frank Lampard | John Terry | 581 | England 2003-12 | 65 | Chelsea 2001-14 | 516 | ||
| 9 | Ian Callaghan | Tommy Smith | 574 | Liverpool 1963-78 | 571 | Swansea 1978-79 | 3 | ||
| 10 | Ian Callaghan | Emlyn Hughes | 570 | England 1977 | 2 | Liverpool 1967-78 | 568 | ||
| 11 | Igor Akinfeev | Sergey Ignashevich | 565 | Russia 2004-18 | 87 | CSKA 2004-18 | 478 | ||
| 12 | Carles Puyol | Xavi | 565 | Spain 2000-12 | 74 | Barcelona 1999-14 | 491 | ||
| 13 | Norman Hunter | Paul Reaney | 560 | England 1971 | 1 | Leeds 1962-76 | 559 | ||
| 14 | Paolo Maldini | Alessandro Costacurta | 559 | Italy 1991-98 | 49 | Milan 1986-06 | 510 | ||
| 15 | Billy Bremner | Norman Hunter | 554 | Leeds 1962-76 | 554 | ||||
| 16 | Manolo Sanchís | Michel | 534 | Spain 1986-92 | 46 | Real Madrid 1984-96 | 488 | ||
| 17 | Ray Clemence | Emlyn Hughes | 534 | England 1972-80 | 25 | Liverpool 1969-79 | 509 | ||
| 18 | Andrés Iniesta | Xavi | 533 | Spain 2006-14 | 79 | Barcelona 2002-15 | 454 | ||
| 19 | Igor Akinfeev | Vasiliy Berezutskiy | 528 | Russia 2005-16 | 74 | CSKA 2003-18 | 454 | ||
| 20 | Billy Bremner | Paul Reaney | 525 | Leeds 1962-76 | 525 | ||||
| 21 | Sergio Busquets | Jordi Alba | 525 | Spain 2011-22 | 75 | Barcelona 2012-23 | 406 | Inter Miami 2023- | 44 |
| 22 | Gerd Müller | Georg Schwarzenbeck | 523 | Germany 1971-74 | 28 | Bayern 1966-79 | 495 | ||
| 23 | Sergey Ignashevich | Vasiliy Berezutskiy | 521 | Russia 2003-16 | 83 | CSKA 2004-18 | 438 | ||
| 24 | John Hollins | Ron Harris | 515 | Chelsea 1964-75 | 515 | ||||
| 25 | Ian Callaghan | Chris Lawler | 510 | Liverpool 1963-75 | 510 | ||||
| 26 | Ryan Giggs | Paul Scholes | 510 | Man United 1994-13 | 510 | ||||
| 27 | Iker Casillas | Raúl | 506 | Spain 2000-06 | 55 | Real Madrid 1999-10 | 451 | ||
| 28 | Lionel Messi | Gerard Piqué | 506 | Barcelona 2008-21 | 506 | ||||
| 29 | Lionel Messi | Andrés Iniesta | 502 | Barcelona 2004-18 | 502 | ||||
| 30 | Franz Beckenbauer | Georg Schwarzenbeck | 501 | Germany 1971-76 | 43 | Bayern 1966-77 | 458 | ||
| 31 | Ron Harris | Peter Bonetti | 500 | Chelsea 1962-79 | 500 |
Tie-breaker: more NT games